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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Evidence, like rodeo, is for the gentiles:

I'm counting down to Pesach with 25 days of fantastic DovBear posts. Each day. we'll run at least one classic post from the last ten years, so if you've never been quite sure how this blog became so popular this is your chance to find out. Click to see all the countdown posts so far Today's countdown post is from less than a year ago. It attempt to express my frustration in dealing with people who have what might be termed a "Haredi mindset." In brief, this means they've already made up their minds about the nature of things and instead of reconsidering their conclusions in response to new facts, they think its a mark of piety, faith and Jewish-honesty to rethink their original claims instead. This is a classic example of ad hoc thinking.Please do us a favor and share the countdown on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks.

The Torah-True Response to Evidence

Original Publication Date: Monday, June 30, 2014

What follows will illustrate the difference between regular people and Torah-true people.

Claim: the moon is made from green cheese.Counter - evidence: astronauts return from the moon with rocks
Regular person: Well what do you know. I guess the moon is made from rocks.

Claim: the moon is made from green cheese.Counter - evidence: astronauts return from the moon with rocksTorah true person #1: obviously the astronaut is lying. All he wants to do is destroy our emunah to justify his own love for pork and loose womenTT #2: When we said the moon was made from cheese we meant the other moons not this oneTT #3: The moon used to be made from cheese but the teva changed and now it isn'tTT #4: the moon is both cheese and rock in a spiritual way that none of us are holy enough to understandTT #5: when we said the moon was made from cheese we were speaking allegoricallyTT#6: Tomorrow the scientists will just change their minds again and tell us the moon is made from cheeseSUGGESTIONS FROM OTHER PEOPLETT#8 To understand why the rocks are not a problem, you will first need to understand neo platonian metaphysics, aristotelian meta linguistics, maharal, moreh nevuchim, ralbag, rashbag, ben bag bag, Kant, Heidigger, Schilling, and Plantinga. But of course you're just an intellectually lightweight blogger, influenced by the current zeitgeist, with no deep understanding of anything, only interested in scoring cheap shots and preaching to your echo chamber, so I'm not going to waste my time explaining it to you.

TT#9: The rocks were put there on purpose at time of creation to fool the scientists/to test who's emuna is real.

TT#9 People died going to the gas chambers singing ani maamin that the moon is made of green cheese, how could you question that?

TT#10 My father told me its made of green cheese, and his father told him, all the way back to the original green cheese revelation. Are you calling my father a liar?

TT#11: GCM (Green Cheese Moon) has sustained our people for 3000 years (insert Mark Twain quote here). Those who questioned GCM are now consigned to the dustbin of history. They have no past, no future and no present. In fact, if it wasnt for me constantly reminding you of how bad the GCM deniers are, you wouldn't even know about them.

TT#12: Maicheesidies has paskened that GCM is a required belief. There's nothing to debate.

TT#13: If Chazal said GCM is true, then thats more real than anything else, even astronauts with rocks. Chazal create reality, its emes veyatziv.

TT#14: True, its a kashyeh. But no one ever died from a kashyeh. When Eliyahu Hanavi comes he will provide the tirutz

TT#15: Its pure gaavoh to think you can answer such questions, or even ask such questions. We know Chazal were 100% right.

Don't forget those who simply compartmentalize: "I believe religiously that the moon is made of cheese, but that has no bearing on my secular understanding that it is made of rock"

If it relates to Jews, Judaism, holidays, Midrash,Torah, halacha or anything similar, I probably have a post on it. And if I have a post on it, I probably have a good comment thread with great reader-provided information, too.

Try a search and see for yourself. If you can't find what you're looking for ask me.

Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

"...he's trying to show that there are other facets to Orthodox Judaism. That we don't all think one way and vote one way. And he's occasionally entertaining when he's not being mean-spirited" [PsychoToddler]"

"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]